A typology of different perspectives on the spatial economic impacts of marine spatial planning

ABSTRACT

Marine spatial planning aims to create a framework for the oceans and seas that minimise conflicts between economic activities within the marine environment while maintaining good environmental status. Although reports by international – and national – organisations suggest there are economic benefits to marine spatial planning this analysis has, to date, been aspatial. Employing an explorative Q methodology approach with ten participants, this paper seeks to address this spatial and distributive gap by exploring stakeholders (marine renewable energy, fishing industry, aquaculture and marine tourism) perceptions of the economic impacts of marine spatial planning across varying (local to national) geographical scales in the U.K. The paper develops a typology of three different perspectives on the economic impacts of marine spatial planning: the optimistic ‘place-makers’; the sceptical ‘place-holders’; and the utilitarian ‘place-less’. Findings highlight that participants loading onto a specific ‘type’ cannot simply be explained by stakeholder categorisation. This research contributes to the coastal management literature by identifying differing perceptions on the ‘spatial economic impact’ of marine spatial planning by economic actors utilising marine and coastal areas in the U.K.

KEYWORDS:

• Marine spatial planning
• Q methodology
• Blue Economy
• spatial economic impacts
• typology

Acknowledgements

We want to extend our sincere thanks to those who participated in this research. We also want to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their generous comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Madeleine Gustavsson is a Research Fellow at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health. She is working on an ESRC New Investigator grant focused on exploring the changing lives of women in small-scale fishing families in the U.K. and Newfoundland. Her research interests are marine and coastal sustainability drawing on social science methods to understand the lifeworlds of marine actors.

Dr Karyn Morrissey is a senior lecturer at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter. Over the last 10 years, Karyn has developed a substantial research profile in marine economics; recently publishing a book entitled ‘The Economics of the Marine’ with Rowan and Littlefield. Karyn is interested in the science-policy interface and produced the first economic valuation of Ireland’s ocean economy.

ORCID

Madeleine Gustavsson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6469-0675

Karyn Morrissey http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7259-1047

Notes

1 Such as Marine Protected Areas, Marine Conservation Zones, Marine Reserves, Zoning and Seasonal area closures as well as terrestrial planning systems.

2 However, this statement (3) is slightly contradictory to other statements in this Factor and we believe this statement was ambiguous and participants interpreted this in different ways.

3 However, there was a lack of representation of small-scale fishing businesses in the sample.